Getting knocked up caught me completely by surprise. Yes, this is exactly how I describe it every single time because it was so unintentional and surprising that I felt like I literally had the wind knocked out of me when I found out. Not because I wasn’t ready or didn’t want kids, but because I had subconsciously resigned myself to the fact that I might never have any.

Flashback

Back in 2015, I was diagnosed with ovarian cyst. It can be a pretty benign condition that goes away with medication if discovered early. Unfortunately for me, by the time I was diagnosed, it was already pretty severe. In the words of one of the doctors I had spoken with, the cyst was as large as a 3-month-old fetus.

How on earth did I go around carrying something that large inside of me without noticing? Honestly, it baffles me to this day. In fairness, some people with this condition experience some form of abdominal pain which causes them to seek medical attention and get an early diagnosis. I however felt no single pain and though I noticed my abdomen getting bigger, I immediately attributed it to my poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. I was a 200 level student at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) at the time, and my diet comprised mainly of noodles, fried eggs, soda, bread, and rice.  So a slightly bulging abdomen just felt a justly deserved punishment for my sins and like the catholic girl I was raised to be, I quickly sought my penance by beginning a steady and intense workout and diet regime.

An Intervention

I would probably still be on my self-imposed fitness journey to this day if God hadn’t intervened in the form of UNILAG medical check-up. As a UNILAG student, medical screening is mandatory when you get admitted, usually done in your first year. It can be a very tedious process that involves a lot of queues and file carrying so of course I had zero interest in it. I would probably never gone for the check-up if someone had not "bobo'd" me by telling me that there was a financial penalty attached to not going through with it after 200 level (I was a direct entry student, so my 200 level was officially my first year). This was a lie by the way. A lie that probably saved my life.

One fine day, I marched to the clinic to do the needful. During my physical examination, I was asked to undress, then the doctor proceeded to do a routine breast and abdominal check. She had a funny look on her face when she got to my abdomen and asked me if I was pregnant. I looked at her in surprise because unless there was going to be another case of Immaculate Conception, there was a 0% chance of me being pregnant. I told her I wasn’t, so she asked me to get dressed and wrote me a referral to some clinic in Surulere to go get a scan. At that point, my heart started beating and I became afraid.

Dotun and the Diagnosis

Any normal person would have probably called their family to cry and tell them what had happened, but I was and still am very far from normal so I kept it to myself. The next day, I confided in one of my best friends. Her name is Dotun (I had 4 best friends back in UNILAG, Yes me! but more on this later). At the time, I didn’t give too much thought as to why I chose to tell Dotun out of my harem of best friends, but looking back now it is very clear to me. It is absolute facts that Dotun is one of the nicest people you may ever meet and is notoriously easy to talk to. There is however something else that makes her special. Dotun is something of a quack doctor (she will probably kill me for this). She has 4 older sisters, 3 of whom are medical doctors, so of course, Dotun is one as well by blood. Good luck trying to explain to her that medical degrees don’t work that way.

Anyway, I told Dotun what happened and she took me to the hospital where one of her sisters worked. A scan was done and I was told I had a huge cyst in my ovary which would have to be surgically removed.

A Successful Surgery

It was at this point that I called my family. The rest of it was a whirlwind of hospital visits, blood tests, and scans. I remember being really stressed that period because I was missing some classes to keep up with my hospital visits (attendance in my department was a major thing). One thing that struck me during one of my hospital visits was when the doctor told me to avoid strenuous physical exercises as it could lead to the cyst rupturing and me dying (The countless sit-ups and crunches I had been doing religiously flashed in my head and I laughed).

Surgery was eventually done, and the cyst was taken out along with one of my ovaries. I was told it was inevitable due to the sheer size of the cyst. The doctor advised me to get married and knocked up as soon as possible because I apparently have a cystic ovary so the other ovary had small cysts around it as well, therefore fertility would be an issue for me.

Fast forward to 2020. Now that you have context, can you understand how shocked I was to discover I was pregnant barely 3 months into my marriage???